This article gives a brief overview of the Spiral to Recovery practice framework as it is being used at Catalyst child and family services in far north Queensland. The Spiral is an evidence informed framework for therapeutic residential care (TRC), designed for children and young people with complex and extreme emotional and behavioural difficulties who reside in out-of-home care (OOHC) placements. The Spiral is a stage-based framework where the initial aim is to establish actual and felt safety before young people meet the challenges of healing and growth. The framework rests on a theoretical base of trauma, attachment and socialisation theories. The article also describes how the Spiral framework has been implemented at Catalyst, demonstrating the need for congruence between organisational and practice frameworks.

This paper addresses the issue of cooperation and the building of effective partnerships within the network of agencies that aim to strengthen and support families. It argues that an important step in building such partnerships is an awareness of what each agency does. This paper therefore sets out the context in which family support services are currently operating in NSW, the particular strengths of family support services and the contribution of such services to families and to planners. Constraints on family support services are also explored, particularly those that relate to the lack of recognition of the role of family support services and lack of resources available in NSW. There is an analysis of options regarding changes to work practices by family support services to deal with the lack of resources.

The concept of Good Enough Parenting, introduced by Winnicott in 1965, has been useful to distinguish between care of children which is not ideal, and care which warrants removal of children from a family. There have been various attempts to turn the concept into practice guidelines, most notably by the British Agencies for Adoption and Fostering (Adcock & White 1985). However there is a dearth of Australian material and little which is concise.

Barnardos Australia believed that it was necessary to produce a short practice paper to address this critical issue in child protection practice. This paper was developed through a series of workshops with Barnardos workers which focused on their practice needs. It was designed to assist in decisions about parenting standards which are difficult, not the most obvious situations of neglect or abuse. The paper suggests ways of thinking about good enough parenting and practical questions to bear in mind in family assessment.

This paper addresses a number of issues relating to welfare planning for children with serious disorders of attachment, including problems in relation to natural families, implications for caregivers of behavioural aspects of attachment disorders, and difficulties in implementing ‘permanency planning’ principles. Historical trends and cycles in policy formulation are referred to, and some suggestions are made with regard to directions for treatment and future planning of services.

While participation of parents in case planning in child protection is widely accepted as desirable, in practice both workers and parents are often left frustrated by the outcomes of child protection meetings. Two models of managing the decision making process are reviewed, Looking After Children (LAC) and Family Decision Making (FDM). Approaches to preparation, planning and management of conflict are highlighted. Strategies for facilitating parental participation are identified and can be applied more broadly to child protection meetings, to encourage more effective outcomes.

Identifying and describing factors which influence men's participation in child rearing has been the focus of major studies on fatherhood over the past two decades. Traditional divisions of labour within the domestic sphere are being redefined and challenged as greater equity in parental role tasks has become a desirable characteristic of contemporary family life. Recent research has shown that many men, far from being reluctant participants in parenting tasks, frequently experience discouragement in their attempts at greater involvement in the raising of their children. This paper reports on studies which describe institutional, interpersonal and intrapersonal barriers which men may experience in their attempts to create a more nurturant style of fatherhood, including fathers' reactions to these barriers.

This study, undertaken for the qualification of BSW(Hons), explored the nature of supports used by non-residential fathers after separating from their children. It was designed to address the perspectives of men who were separated from their children and to explore the supports they used to cope with this separation experience. It acknowledges the complexity and changing nature of the fathering role in Australia today.

Data was obtained from semi-structured interviews with men who were encouraged to share experiences in relation to their roles as non-residential fathers. An interpretive perspective and descriptive method used in the design allowed for a deeper understanding of what men experience when separated from their children.

The findings demonstrated that the nature and use of supports employed by fathers related to how they experienced separation and managed relationships and contacts with their children. Men used a range of informal and formal supports to manage the often difficult post-separation period and maintain relationships with their children. These findings have implications for social work practice, particularly for understanding the support needs of men when separating from their children. It points also to the need for an increased emphasis on the importance of supports for non-residential fathers.

Fathers and father figures in child welfare and child development have often been neglected as a focus of interest and research, yet they are often recognised as being a key to the functioning of the family. In addition to this concept, parenting beliefs and practices inevitably influence those of child development and child rearing. By beginning to unravel the differences between role and gender and looking at the diverse dimensions of fatherhood, it is contended that there is no definitive discourse regarding fatherhood in the same way as it is suggested about motherhood.

Whoever these men are, and whichever ethnic group or culture that they may originate from, it is argued that they have often been ignored or avoided in child welfare work. It is hoped that by identifying some of the key concepts in this overlooked area, intervention can be planned to engage fathers more constructively.

This school-based study reports on the development and preliminary analysis of the new pictorial semi-structured Child Anxiety and Coping Interview (CACI). Participants included 195 children (Mage = 6.71; SDage = .76) drawn from 29 primary schools located in Western Sydney, Australia. The study used a mixed qualitative and quantitative design. The CACI was used to elicit the children's self-report on their problems, emotions, coping strategies, and coping self-efficacy. Qualitative content and thematic analysis were used to code the children's nominated coping strategies for their problems in the home and school contexts. The top five most common problems reported were as follows: fear of spiders or insects, fear of the dark, going places without parents, doing badly at school, and heights. The top five most common coping strategies reported by the children were support seeking, behavioural avoidance, solving the problem, facing the challenge, and behavioural distraction. Self-reported negative emotional intensity was highest for fear of the dark. Coping self-efficacy for fear of the dark was also high, suggesting the children found their coping strategies helpful, including those that were maladaptive. The clinical implications of these findings are discussed.

Children and young people in out-of-home care experience significant challenges in the adjustment process. All family members are affected by the transition of a child or young person into the family and so carers require a unique set of skills and strategies to respond appropriately. This paper is the second in a series of four papers examining responses to a range of challenging behaviours seen in children and young people placed in out-of-home care contexts. The first paper explored strategies that carers could employ to deal with oppositional behaviours identified in the child or young person. This paper considers offensive behaviours that may be evidenced in children and young people, and practical approaches which carers can utilise to respond proactively to such behaviours.

This article addresses common misconceptions about the historic abuse of children in Victoria during the mid-twentieth century, including those contained in the 2006 official Victorian Government apology to state wards. The article has two aims – firstly, to consider allegations of abuse and some common reactions to, and explanations of those allegations; and, secondly, to test the abuse allegations against the 1954 and 1960 Victorian Children's Welfare Regulations concerning the use of corporal punishment in Children's Homes. The author contends that historical relativism and the notion that abuse allegations can be explained as a feature of changing attitudes towards children and discipline do not stand up to scrutiny and inhibit useful examination of the causes and consequences of abuse in out-of-home care.

This paper aims to give an overview of out-of-home care in India. It looks at the history and culture of extra-familial care in the country, the urgent need for organised out-of-home care, and tries to understand the role of the state, including legislation and policies. The belief that individual families should solve their children's problems is deeply ingrained. There are different support systems that cater to the children's needs and right to healthy living in home and with family. While the government and community choose and decide for the children of the country, the government drags its feet in drafting policies which recognise that large number of children are growing up without families. More research is needed to look at the need and quality parameters for out-of-home care. Action from both government and non-government organisations (NGOs) will require a large number of institutions that, in turn, will require sufficient budgets and trained staff to ensure an environment of protection, support and appropriate development for an estimated 20 million children in need of good quality out-of-home care in India.

The Wood Report is the product of a Special Commission of Inquiry into Child Protection Services in NSW that was set up in June 2006 and reported in November 2008. In March 2009, the NSW Government published a response to the report, ‘Keep them safe: A shared approach to child wellbeing’. The NSW Parliament in April 2009 also passed the Children Legislation Amendment (Wood Inquiry Recommendations) Act 2009 with little debate. This legislation has introduced many of Justice Wood's recommendations and has enacted other changes that were not included in the Commission of Inquiry report. While many of the amendments are welcome, there is cause for concern about the likely consequences of some of the new provisions.

In previous comparative research on child well-being, most attention has been paid to how well-being varies. This paper draws on international comparisons of child well-being to explore a number of hypotheses as to why it might vary. In particular, it seeks to explore why subjective well-being among children might vary between countries. It argues that subjective well-being – what children say about their lives – should be taken seriously and we should be concerned that what they say varies so much. The conclusion is that even though we cannot explain these variations, we can ensure that every effort is made to enhance well-being in schools, in the home, and more directly, by social and emotional education

This paper reports on a study of child protection practice in a non-government child protection organisation in inner Sydney. The purpose of the study was to explore workers ‘perceptions of critical issues in child protection and family support work in families affected by parental substance use. The findings raise issues about prevalence of substance use issues in child protection work, the risks posed to workers in this domain of practice, and the importance of improved co-operation amongst agencies involved with these families affected by parental substance use. Future research directions for improving child protection and family support practice with families affected by parental substance use are considered.

Written from a practitioner’s perspective, this article explores some concerns with the application of the very popular strength based approaches to statutory child protection work. It is suggested that, despite the many benefits and positives in these approaches, these models are sometimes used (or misused) too early in intervention, which can lead to over optimism about the possibilities for change. The article questions whether a solely strength based approach can be safely applied to child protection work, and encourages practitioners to question their practice and ‘proceed with caution’.

The United Nations has proclaimed and agreed that everyone is entitled to ail the rights and freedoms set forth therein, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.

The United Nations has proclaimed that childhood is entitled to special care and assistance.

The United Nations is convinced that the family, as the fundamental group of society and the natural environment for the growth and well-being of all its members and particularly children, should be afforded the necessary protection and assistance so that it can fully assume its responsibilities within the community.

The United Nations recognizes that the child, for the full and harmonious development of his or her personality, should grow up in a family environment, in an atmosphere of happiness, love and understanding.

The United Nations considers that the child should be fully prepared to live an individual life in society, and brought up in the spirit of peace, dignity, tolerance, freedom, equality and solidarity.

In order to place child sexual abuse in the broader conceptual framework of unwanted sexual experiences in childhood, this study explores a continuum of intrusive behaviours as reported in questionnaire data gathered from 345 first and second year Australian university students. The data provide evidence which is supportive of other findings on the nature and extent of child sexual abuse for females and males, including age of occurrence, identity of perpetrators, most commonly occurring behaviours, and gender differences in disclosure and prevalence.

This article explores the difficulties and joys of older child adoption. While many children and their families grow towards a secure attachment over months or years, this will probably never be of the same intensity as that between parents and their biological children. For some families, the role of loving caretakers may be the best possible outcome for a child with attachment difficulties.